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Comment by jeroenhd | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have a proper replacement for a "smart" TV interface that runs on plain Linux instead of some random Chinese Android box?

My TV is relatively old and the Netflix app just can't keep up anymore. I was considering running some Android TV box but if those show ads now I'm not interested anymore.

Right now my TV is hooked up to my server running Kodi, but I'd like something that plays YouTube at full resolution (as opposed to Kofi's 720p limit because of some obscure dependency issue) and is also capable of running Netflix.

I'll probably have to cave eventually and get myself a Chromecast but if there's an option that doesn't rely on Google, I'd like to hear about it.

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Apple TV is the only box that does everything. Even my Roku can’t play HBO Max. It’s not Google, runs Linux technically, and so far passed the wife test.

I was a Roku user for years until they started randomly installing new "channels" from paid advertisers. That week I bought a Chromecast. Now I'm transitioning to Apple TV.

That might explain the stupid game that magically showed up on mine. Talk about a short sighted money grab. Owning the interface on a TV has to be worth a ton of long term value which is going to settle around $0 if they pull crap like that (at least from me).

Nvidia Shield (I think it's considered an AndroidTV). It isn't as cheap as a chromecast and it isn't plain Linux but my wife and I are thinking about getting one for our TV because of the convenience/ease-of-use. You can still cast to it if you need to, but you can get all of the streaming apps you need and I don't think I've seen an ad at all (other than in a streaming app such as Prime).

Ehh Nevermind. I hadn't made it through all the comments and I see other people are seeing these ads on the Shield.

Is there a reason a standard computer can't work? You have linux and firefox with proper adblocking. Youtube runs at full resolution, netflix always works in the browser, as well as other services. I havent watched an ad in years and can't imagine going back.

Wanted to add there are all kinds of interesting remote controls for computers in image search. With a non-desktop style gui it seems like a viable smart tv replacement.

A number of streaming services won't let you recieve 4K on PC.

Currently my TV is hooked up to a computer but it's hard to use the interface as a TV.

I want to use the TV as a TV, not just as a remote desktop. I've tried using KDE connect with mouse pad + keyboard remote control but the experience isn't great.

> My TV is relatively old and the Netflix app just can't keep up anymore

You might be locked out of HD content because TV doesn't support the newest DRM.

I can't play anything HD on my 4K tv anymore because it doesn't support HCDP 2.2

I think there's a Plasma based SmartTV UI in development. Maybe you could try that. It's currently only for the Raspberry Pi 4 though if I remember correctly.

> plain Linux

> Netflix app

Choose one.

Kodi runs fine on a Fire TV Stick.

Which is also littered with ads and prevented side loading of kodi before iirc*

Like a few other people in this thread I tried roku, firetv box/stick and landed on an nvidia shield to get away from ads. At the time of writing (now that shield/androidtv are showing ads) I don't believe a decent ad-free box exists.

> Which is also littered with ads and prevented side loading of kodi before iirc

I use it just fine. Not sure what adverts you are referring to past the tv season suggestion on the home screen, but I use a pihole.

You can use a recent Pi if you want plain Linux. It evens works with CEC. No idea about YouTube though (I share the video to the Fire TV Stick and it plays).

Idk if pihole blocks these but here you can see the ads https://advertising.amazon.com/resources/ad-specs/fire-tv

It also requires signing in at all times (not 100% sure on this) to use the device so I don't consider it a viable alternative to a "dumb" android box which has a plain experience throughout

From a comment above about OSMC this looks like it counts: https://osmc.tv/vero/

I don't have one or use OSMC (although it looks interesting, not sure how i missed it).

I currently use an Raspberry Pi 4 with Raspbian and have Kodi installed for the media centre experience and use Chromium with a "hack" which copies the ARM widevine plug-in from Chrome OS so DRM streaming works.

You can just use Netflix, BBC, whatever through their website in most cases. Streaming is fine for me at 720p, and i think 1080p also works well enough. More than 1080 and an RPi 4 doesn't have the decoding power right now i think.

It is a clunky setup though, OSMC and their hardware is probably much slicker, but you would loose the ability to watch streaming services (that require DRM at least).

I've been using a Vero 4K+ for a couple years now and it works perfectly for local content.

That said: I thought I would be fine using it for local content and the TV for streaming content however over time having to use different devices for different content is definitely starting to get annoying, and I'm considering picking up an Apple TV because of this.

A big problem with Kodi is that it lacks official things like Netflix, Hulu, etc. Hell you can't even cast to it properly. It's great for local content, and for a while a few years back there were really good pirate services for streaming basically anything, but overall it is very disappointing and you end up having to bolt Chrome and struggle through a shitty browsing experience to watch a lot of stuff.

I use Netflix on the Fire TV Stick (not through Kodi).

Intel NUC?

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